A larger second Death Star is being built in the events of the 1983 film Return of the Jedi, featuring substantially improved capabilities compared to its predecessor, before it is destroyed by the Rebel Alliance while under construction.

The 2015 film The Force Awakens introduces Starkiller Base, a planet (Ilum) converted by the First Order into a Death Star-like superweapon.

[2] George Lucas gave the original task of designing a "Death Star" to concept artist and spaceship modeler Colin Cantwell,[3] who had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[2][8] The grid plan animation shown during the Rebel briefing before the Death Star attack in A New Hope was an actual computer-graphics simulation developed by Larry Cuba at the University of Illinois Chicago alongside computer graphics researcher Tom DeFanti.

[9] George Lucas had recruited Cuba for the project after becoming familiar with his and Gary Imhoff's work with CalArts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[16] Commanded by Governor Tarkin, it is the Galactic Empire's "ultimate weapon",[b] a huge spherical battle station 160 kilometres (99 mi) in diameter capable of destroying a planet with one shot of its superlaser.

The film opens with Princess Leia transporting the station's schematics to the Rebel Alliance to aid them in destroying the Death Star.

[17] To mark the Death Star being fully operational, Tarkin orders the Death Star to destroy Leia's home world of Alderaan in an attempt to press her into giving him the location of the secret Rebel headquarters; she gives them the location of Dantooine, which housed a now-deserted Rebel base, but Tarkin has Alderaan destroyed anyway as a demonstration of the Empire's resolve.

Later, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C-3PO, and R2-D2 (who were intended to arrive at Alderaan on board the Millennium Falcon) are pulled aboard the station by a tractor beam, where they discover and manage to rescue Princess Leia.

Later, Luke returns as part of a fighter force to attack its only weak point: a ray-shielded particle exhaust vent leading straight from the surface directly into its reactor core, discovered previously from the stolen schematics.

Luke is able to successfully launch his X-wing fighter's torpedoes into the vent, impacting the core and triggering a catastrophic explosion, which destroys the station before it can annihilate the Rebel base on Yavin 4.

[23] In the animated series Star Wars Rebels, the two-part episode "Ghosts of Geonosis" hints that the Geonosians were nearly wiped out to extinction out of the Empire's need for secrecy.

Saw Gerrera, having been sent to Geonosis to investigate, deduces that the Empire possesses a superweapon and resolves to discover the Death Star as depicted in the two-part episode "In the Name of the Rebellion".

[citation needed] Part of the wreckage of the second Death Star appears in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), on the ocean moon Kef Bir.

[35] The Force Awakens features Starkiller Base, a Death Star-like superweapon built by the First Order, an autocratic regime considered to be the successor of the Empire.

Significantly larger than both previous Death Stars, the superweapon was constructed out of an existing planet called Ilum instead of being assembled in deep space.

Subsequently, an X-wing assault led by Poe Dameron and Nien Nunb destroys the superweapon by damaging the base's thermal oscillator and fuel cells, resulting in a catastrophic release of energy from the planet's core.

During early concept development, artist Doug Chiang envisioned the superweapon's gun as set inside a volcano, which X-wings would have to enter in a maneuver similar to the trench run on the Death Star in the original film.

Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy (1994) introduces the Maw Cluster of black holes that protect a laboratory where the Death Star prototype was built (consisting of the superstructure, power core, and superlaser).

[citation needed] The first level of LucasArts' Dark Forces (1995) gives mercenary Kyle Katarn the role of stealing the plans that are subsequently given to Leia.

The first Death Star's hangars contain assault shuttles, blastboats, Strike cruisers, land vehicles, support ships, and 7,293 TIE fighters.

The Habitation spheres, based on the Imperials' suspicious claims that they were designed strictly for peaceful purposes, were suggested by some fans to have been the origin for the Death Star III.

Later in the series, a nihilistic group attempts to use a weapon to dislodge a planet from its orbit and cause others to do the same in a chain reaction, thereby destroying the entire universe.

[54] The first Eclipse was under construction at the time of the Emperor's death at Endor; shortly thereafter, it was briefly captured by pirates, who quickly abandoned it as an obvious target for the Rebels.

In Kevin J. Anderson's novel Darksaber (1995), Death Star designer Bevel Lemelisk is recruited by the Hutts to build a superlaser weapon.

Due to their refusal to sufficiently fund and supply the project, the resultant 'superweapon' is quickly destroyed by a combination of the tumultuous Hoth asteroid field in which it was built and the efforts of the New Republic.

[73][74][75][76] In 1979, Palitoy created a heavy card version of the Death Star as a playset for the vintage range of action figures in the UK, Australia and Canada.

[84] In 2012–13, a (satirical) proposal on the White House's website urging the United States government to build a real Death Star as an economic stimulus and job creation measure gained more than 30,000 signatures, enough to qualify for an official response.

[86][87] The White House response also stated that "the Administration does not support blowing up planets," and questioned funding a weapon "with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship" as reasons for denying the petition.

[90] In an interview with a local radio station, however Lavey admitted that this petition was just a joke and some kind of protest against the space plans of the government.